IT SEEMS, IN one way at least, that leaving the EU has done us Brits a favour. Not so long ago, a little dream began to die inside me. Nothing major, just a potential (if unlikely) prospect that suddenly appeared to become more remote. You see, given the means, the car I’d most like to buy new and grow old with looked as though it was about to disappear from the price lists somewhat prematurely. It was being killed by EU legislation. Legislation that doesn’t apply in the UK. Soon you can no longer buy a Porsche Cayman new in Germany (or France, Italy, Spain…), yet you can in Britain. At least for a short while longer, until its electric replacement arrives and that little dream properly bites the dust.
Of course, I own (and regularly drive) one of the earliest Boxsters. All of the above was brought home to me recently while enjoying a properly memorable moorland drive in the current Cayman GTS 4.0. I’ve raved in these pages about the insanely revvy GT4 RS, which is maybe a little too hardcore to recommend as a daily driver and (along with the Boxster Spyder RS) is granted an EU reprieve thanks to small-series type approval. But as I dropped to second (it was a manual, of course), planted the throttle and tapped a perfectly judged vein of torque towards a coruscating flat-six redline climax, I thought, yes, driving for its own sake doesn’t often get much better than this. And sorry if that comes across a bit Troy Queef.
The legislation in question is the EU’s adoption of UN regulations agreeing common standards in automotive Cyber Security Management System (CSMS) hardware. The aim is to keep cars safe from hackers. Porsche reckoned the investment in upgrading the 718 twins’ decade-old electronic architecture couldn’t be justified: a new version is expected in the next
